Access Denied. The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering

A study of Internet blocking and filtering around
the world: analyses by leading researchers and survey results that
document filtering practices in dozens of countries.

Many countries around the world block or filter
Internet content, denying access to information that they deem too
sensitive for ordinary citizens—most often about politics, but sometimes
relating to sexuality, culture, or religion. Access Denied
documents and analyzes Internet filtering practices in more than three
dozen countries, offering the first rigorously conducted study of an
accelerating trend.

Internet filtering takes place in more than
three dozen states worldwide, including many countries in Asia, the
Middle East, and North Africa. Related Internet content-control
mechanisms are also in place in Canada, the United States and a cluster
of countries in Europe. Drawing on a just-completed survey of global
Internet filtering undertaken by the OpenNet Initiative (a collaboration
of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School,
the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, the Oxford Internet
Institute at Oxford University, and the University of Cambridge) and
relying on work by regional experts and an extensive network of
researchers, Access Denied examines the political, legal, social,
and cultural contexts of Internet filtering in these states from a
variety of perspectives. Chapters discuss the mechanisms and politics of
Internet filtering, the strengths and limitations of the technology
that powers it, the relevance of international law, ethical
considerations for corporations that supply states with the tools for
blocking and filtering, and the implications of Internet filtering for
activist communities that increasingly rely on Internet technologies for
communicating their missions. Reports on Internet content regulation in
forty different countries follow, with each two-page country profile
outlining the types of content blocked by category and documenting key
findings.